29. Emily
29
EMILY
N oises in the darkness. Movement.
Was Karn back?
My body tensed, and I hated it. I hated this feeling of fear and the illness that came with it. The curse. The fact that, all through these past few weeks, I’d been attacked and chased, and every single time, I’d had to be saved. Or defended. Or locked away like a precious object.
It was like I was an observer in my own life, and I was so done with it. What was the point in living when all I experienced was fear and pain? Where was the strength? The courage?
Another movement in the darkness, and this time, I wasn’t as afraid.
What was the point? Why be afraid this close to the end? If I was going to die, I wasn’t going to do it cowering. I had been through enough in my life—enough when I’d lost my parents, enough when I’d wound up bullied and victimized by the children at the orphanage, enough after all of this.
For once, I wanted to live my life how I wanted to live it. Even if it was only for a few minutes .
“Good evening, Emily.” Karn’s tone was calm albeit rasping. It sounded like the turning of an old page in a book, but not in a comforting way. “Are you hungry, perhaps?”
“No. I’m not hungry,” I said. “Being tied up and blindfolded against your will tends to do things to your appetite.”
“That’s unfortunate.” He stopped close to me. I could sense him to my right, and I turned my head. “You know, if you’re going to beat your illness, you will need to eat.”
“I’m not going to beat my illness,” I said. “I’m going to die, and we both know it. So why don’t we just move past the small talk and get to the point. What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Karn laughed under his breath, and even that was dry and disconcerting. “What do I want? I want complete control and power. But then, everyone wants that, don’t they? They want the world to work in the way they see it.”
“No, they don’t.”
“No?”
“No. Wanting power and control is evil. It’s?—”
“Ah, hold on, one second, Emily,” Karn said. “You’re telling me that if you had a choice, you, sweet little human that you are, full of ideals and personal beliefs, wouldn’t want the wars across the planet to end? You wouldn’t want peace and prosperity? You wouldn’t want an end to poverty or homelessness or hunger?”
“Of course, I would want that, but that’s different.”
“Is it?” Karn asked, those cold, waxy fingers pressing to my flesh again. “Or is it actually just the same? A projection of the image you want the world to be. A different form of power of control. No, not even different. It’s just the same. You want what you want. And when you don’t get it, it makes you angry like the rest of us. Vampire, human, werewolves—all of us are alike in that.”
“I disagree.”
“You can disagree, but it doesn’t change the facts, my dear. You are as selfish and controlling as the next person. Just because your desires are for the perceived ‘greater good’ doesn’t make you any better than the rest of us,” he said.
His words were toxic. “I don’t want to talk to you any more.”
Karn’s laughter echoed through the chamber.
I had started picturing the space in my mind, based on the sounds I’d heard so far. It was dark. A cube. And there was a door with a barred hatch. I couldn’t see it, but I was weirdly sure of that.
“You don’t have to talk. I don’t need you to talk for what I’m going to do next.”
“Stay away from me.”
A silence.
“I have the book.”
I stiffened. Impossible. Alex took the book. Unless ? —
“That’s right,” Karn said. “Your dear Alexander is also in my possession. He has foolishly delivered the book to me. Of course, he will pay either with his blood or his service for ever having left our coven, but that is besides the point. How does it feel, Emily? To know that he’s betrayed you once again.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Does it hurt?” Karn pressed his fingers to my cheek this time. “So warm and beautiful. I’ve had my work cut out for me, keeping the other vampires in my coven away from you. Granted, they listen when I speak, but that is irrelevant. You are glowing. Giving off a delicious scent. They want to bond you and keep you because they know what you truly are.”
No. No, I refuse. I’m not going to be a Guardian.
“You don’t have a choice,” Karn said. “A Guardian. You’re invaluable. And you will serve Sanguine Nox.”
“I won’t. I’ll die instead.”
“I’m going to bring you back from the brink of death my dear. You are seconds away from it, you know.”
I didn’t feel seconds away. I was weak, but there was no “tunnel of white light” or whatever else was supposed to happen before you died. No flashes of memories or that kind of thing. But then, who was I to judge that? I’d never been in this kind of position before.
“Did you know, that if I bring that book in here right now, you will die within a few seconds?”
I tensed. “I—I?—”
“That’s right, dear Emily. You are, indeed, seconds away from your death. And I will bind you to keep you alive.”
“I don’t want?—”
“If you want to live, you will bind me,” he said.
“How?” I spat. “You don’t even know how!”
“That has presented a problem,” he said. “You see, that book doesn’t have the information I need. It seems someone has removed the relevant diary entry that would’ve told us how to perform the ritual.”
Alex.
“But never fear, we’re going to extract that information shortly. In the meantime, we will … experiment with methods of bonding you to me. Conventional ones at first. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll use more unconventional methods.”
I didn’t want to know what he meant by that.
“Indeed, you don’t want to know.”
“Stop reading my thoughts.”
“Why not, my dear? Why not use the talents I’ve been blessed with,” he said. “Now open your mouth if you want to live.”
I kept my mouth firmly shut.
Again, Karn laughed. As if he enjoyed the fact that I was resisting him so thoroughly. There was a moment of silence, and then a strange noise in the darkness. Almost wet but grating.
“What is?—?”
Something coppery and bitter dropped into my mouth, and I swallowed out of instinct.
“That’s right,” he said. “Drink it. My blood will empower you and bond you to me.”
My stomach turned, and I plastered my lips shut as more blood dripped onto my face and mouth. I didn’t care about dying. I didn’t want anything to do with this bond or being a Guardian to this horrific creature.
But it was already too late.
A burning had started in my stomach, and it traveled through my limbs, paining at first and then … wiping away the aches and pains.
“This,” Karn said, “is an old magic. In the times just after vampires were ‘birthed’ into the world, we created thralls. Human creatures who worked with us and held a little of a vampire's power in their blood. It is, regrettably, not the same as a Guardian bond, according to my brief research, but it will have to work for now. It will keep you alive.”
I didn’t thank him. I couldn’t rub the blood from my face.
My nausea disappeared. Strength returned to my limbs.
“Of course, creating thralls is forbidden in modern culture and vampire society. It’s a method of control. You see, now, when I call you, you will be compelled to come to me, wherever you are. And I can do exactly that at any moment.” Karn sighed. “It will wear off after a few months, but then, I can feed you more of my blood, and you will drink it again, whether you are my Guardian or not.”
The pain was entirely gone now. My headache had disappeared too. Everything felt clearer than it had been in weeks, and I could breathe.
Alex. Where’s Alex?
The door to the chamber opened, and a second vampire entered.
I frowned.
I couldn’t see them, but I was sure that this was one vampire alone. A flash of them appeared in my mind. Blonde, blue eyes blazing, hulking and wearing a long cloak.
“Ezekiel,” Karn said. “To what do I owe the interruption?” Karn sounded pissed. Clearly, he hadn’t been finished with the vampire-splaining.
“I am struggling to get the information we need, Master,” he said. “I require your assistance. ”
Karn growled under his breath. “Very well. But bring in two guards to watch her. Something is happening to her, and I want it to be curated and watched. I don’t want a powerful thrall running around our coven without her bindings.”
“Yes, Master.”
Karn left me then and the door closed.
A moment later, it opened again, and two vampires entered. Another flash of the room in my mind’s eye, clearer than before. One vampire was short, yawning, bored. The other was taller and hunched over, leading with his nose as he entered the room. Both had those same blue eyes that I associated with the bad vampires who had taken me.
Taken me. Kidnapped me. Another fact that stung.
I wasn’t going to be weak anymore.
I lay there in the darkness, listening to the vampires talk softly among themselves as they watched me. Power filled my limbs. Karn had made a mistake by giving me his blood.
And I had made a mistake refusing it.
With a sense of disgust at myself, I opened my mouth and licked off the rest of the bitter copper taste he had left there. My head hit the slab behind me, and the image of the room solidified in my mind.
And then of the vampires. The door. The hall beyond.
My consciousness swept through it, as if it could see everything in real time. The hallway outside was cramped, made of stone, and there were brackets that bore torches along the walls. Actual fiery torches.
I shifted, and my stomach growled. Now, I actually was hungry. For the first time in ages, I was starving.
“Hey, settle down,” the vampire said.
It was the short one talking, and his mouth moved in my mind’s eye. He glared at me like I’d personally affronted him. The taller one nudged him and rolled his blue eyes.
“Just ignore her,” he said. “She’s going to die soon anyway.”
“She’s better not. The Master wants her kept alive. ”
The tall vampire sniffed. “Have you heard the rumors?”
“About?”
“About her. She’s human. But they’re keeping her here like she’s something special. Maybe she is something special, you know.”
“Eh. Maybe she’s just meat,” the short one said.
Power filled me from head to toe. It wasn’t like light or heat or anything like that, but a potential. A feeling that I could do anything. That I would do anything.
My arms were bound by leather straps attached to chains. I’d been too weak to move them before, but I wasn’t weak anymore. Now, I lifted both of them and ripped my arms free.
“What the—?” the short vampire exclaimed.
I sat upright on the slab and removed the blindfold from my head, opening my eyes. The image in my brain collided with the one in front of my eyes, and I found they were exactly the same. Whatever Karn had done to me when he’d given me his blood, it had … empowered me.
I slipped off the stone slab and glared at them. “Get out of my way.”
The taller vampire with the terrible posture smirked at me. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll make you,” I replied.